


see you in the sunrise

by LovelyLittleNothing



Series: AUs no one asked for [5]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ghost Ryan Bergara, M/M, Non-graphic descriptions of death, dw yall they end up happy, like literally the least graphic deaths ever, way too many parentheses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 21:47:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16292393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLittleNothing/pseuds/LovelyLittleNothing
Summary: Ryan’s not dead. He’s not. Shane doesn’t give a flying fuck what any of the paramedics are telling him because there’s no way Ryan’s dead. They’re not even doctors, who are they to be going around proclaiming people dead and shit all willy nilly?(Shane knows, in the back of his mind, that paramedics are properly trained for this kind of thing and it’s not fair for him to be taking his anger out on them but it’s his only option. If they’re right then that means Ryan’s dead dead. That he’s gone forever. And Shane hadn’t even- no. So, obviously they’re wrong. They’re incompetent. Because this kind of stuff only happens to other people, distant people you don’t know or people in movies, not to...to Ryan.)---Or the ghost!Ryan au that no one asked for in which Shane does the unthinkable: he believes.





	see you in the sunrise

Ryan’s not dead. He’s  _ not.  _ Shane doesn’t give a flying  _ fuck _ what any of the paramedics are telling him because there’s no way Ryan’s dead. They’re not even doctors, who are they to be going around proclaiming people dead and shit all willy nilly? 

 

(Shane knows, in the back of his mind, that paramedics are properly trained for this kind of thing and it’s not fair for him to be taking his anger out on them but it’s his only option. If they’re right then that means Ryan’s  _ dead _ dead. That he’s gone forever. And Shane hadn’t even- no. So, obviously they’re wrong. They’re incompetent. Because this kind of stuff only happens to other people, distant people you don’t know or people in movies, not to...to  _ Ryan.) _

 

The paramedics eventually drive off with Ryan’s body, covered completely with a white sheet (which again doesn’t make  _ any  _ sense to Shane because he’s  _ not  _ dead) and Shane’s not even allowed in the ambulance with him. Some bullshit about procedures and next of kin only and blah, blah, blah. 

 

Whatever, Shane tells himself, it’s no big deal because he’ll just see Ryan at the hospital, laying in bed with some dumb basketball game on and somehow managing to make bruises and a hospital gown look good. It’ll all be fine. 

 

——

 

The next time Shane sees Ryan is at the funeral. 

 

It’s big and crowded because Ryan had a lot of people who loved him, go figure. There’s family members Shane has never met but more that he has and they give him teary eyed smiles that are brittle around the edges. There’s also almost all of their coworkers and Ryan’s childhood friends, frat types and normal adults alike. 

 

He wouldn’t call it eye opening, seeing just how many people loved Ryan. How wouldn’t people love Ryan, when he just made it so easy, so natural? No, if anything it’s humbling, gives him a sense of camaraderie, like yeah, of course he wasn’t the only one swept up in the hurricane that was Ryan Bergara. 

 

(And maybe hurricane isn’t the right descriptor for Ryan, who was always kind and smart and bright and  _ warm  _ but if Shane starts going down that path, starts thinking about all the best parts of knowing Ryan, then the tightness in his chest will come back and he won’t be able to breathe properly and he just— he can’t right now. He can’t. So Hurricane Ryan, it is.)

 

——

 

Shane takes a break from filming and Buzzfeed is more than happy to give him some time to grieve but Shane insists on continuing to work just...not on camera. 

 

So, they put Ruining History on hiatus until further notice and he works on some short articles in the meanwhile. If clicking “add gif” thirteen times under redundant, over explanations of said gifs counts as writing an article, that is. 

 

The question of what to do with Unsolved is a little more difficult, however. 

 

Shane entertains the idea of continuing it without Ryan, he’s not gonna lie. The idea of just… abandoning Ryan’s baby feels a little too close to betrayal for Shane to stomach but. Whatever happened to Ryan’s eternal soul or wherever it is, Shane hopes it’s somewhere peaceful and he can’t bear the thought of catching it restless and distraught, speaking to him through the spirit box, no matter how impossible he deems that to be. 

 

So in the end, Unsolved is allowed to die a quiet, peaceful death because letting someone else get their hands on it seems even more traitorous than ending it altogether. The Unsolved Network, however, is kept up and Shane pointedly does not feel proud of the fact that it doesn’t seem as successful without Ryan’s show keeping it afloat. 

 

And later that night, when Shane falls asleep, a pen rolls off his desk. 

 

——

 

Shane feels as if he’s going crazy. Or at least he’s projecting like crazy. 

 

Something weird keeps happening to him and he’s not sure if it's wishful thinking or if the grief is just starting to get to him. God, if being haunted by a ghost counts as wishful thinking now then maybe the grief is starting to get to him either way. 

 

Because there’s no way around it; Shane Madej, Skeptic Extraordinaire, is hoping that he’s being haunted by a ghost. 

 

Ryan’s ghost to be exact. 

 

Because why wouldn’t he be?

 

There’s no definitive proof that it’s Ryan, or that it’s even a ghost (and Shane can see the frustrated eye roll Ryan would’ve been giving him if he was still here and it makes his whole chest  _ ache)  _ but he hopes to God that it is. 

 

(Shane knows that he said he wanted Ryan to be at peace but he’s human and he’s selfish and he wants Ryan with him, goddammit.)

 

But anyways, there’s no definitive proof. Except for the fact that Ryan’s Paddington plushie that he keeps on a shelf in his room because he’s a sentimental dumbass keeps getting knocked down every night without fail. 

 

And Shane knows, he  _ knows,  _ that if it was two months prior and Ryan had tried to use a light plushie being knocked off a shelf in a drafty room as evidence of ghosts he would’ve scoffed and tried to explain the concept of gravity to Ryan once again but it’s not two months ago and Ryan’s not here to laugh at so.

 

So Shane accepts it. Is willing to believe, willing to have an open mind, willing to take a step out of his comfort zone like he should’ve done for Ryan months ago when he was still alive and breathing for Shane to take the step with. 

 

——

 

Shane is still Shane though, a lover of the scientific method at his core. So he conducts some experiments; sleeps with the fan on, sleeps with the fan off, places the bear further back on the shelf, on his nightstand, even on the floor. Each time Paddington winds up face down, far enough away from where Shane had originally placed it to be suspicious but still close enough for reasonable doubt. 

 

Shane feels like he’s being tested, being goaded into a game of chicken except the challenge is to see how close to believing Shane is willing to get. He either wants to laugh or rip his hair out. 

 

Instead, he buys a Ouija board. 

 

——

 

Sitting only in his dimly lit apartment, surrounded by candles and a camera ready to film his use of the Ouija board, Shane is painfully aware of his likeness to every dumb White protagonist of every horror movie ever. 

 

If Shane’s only belief at this point wasn’t Ryan he might have even felt a little nervous. As it is, all Shane feels is a fledgling hope of being able to talk to Ryan again, even through an overhyped children’s toy he’d gotten on sale at Target. 

 

He sits there for hours in the dark feeling dumb and angry and confused and  _ something,  _ because where is Ryan? Surely, if Ryan was a ghost, if ghosts were even real at all, then  _ surely  _ Ryan would come to ‘haunt’ him, even if just to rub it in Shane’s face that he was right. 

 

But nothing’s happening and Shane doesn’t get why. He thought— he thought that Ryan would’ve wanted to see him at least once, that even if to Ryan they were just ‘Ghoul Boys’ that that would’ve been enough. 

 

Shane knows he’s being selfish and unreasonable but he’s tired and his back hurts from sitting hunched over for so long and his apartment smells like a gross amalgamation of all the leftover candles he had to hobble together for the  _ seance  _ (and God, Skeptic Shane is pounding his fists against the little box Current Shane has shoved him into in protest of even the idea of this being a legitimate seance) so he thinks he’s allowed to be a little irritable. 

 

He gets up, arms shaking slightly and just stands there for a second, staring emptily at the board. 

 

He takes a deep breath, fingers flexing around the planchette still in his grasp, and then another one, and another one and suddenly his vision is going blurry with tears he hasn’t let fall since Ryan— and he’s pulling his arm back and smashing the dumb, stupid, plastic planchette against the ground. 

 

The plastic splinters because its a toy from a children’s game and Shane feels a small sense of satisfaction, catharsis in the way the warped pieces of plastic lay broken, like he got revenge on them for not having moved when he asked them to. 

 

Eventually, the satisfaction fades, and he sighs to himself, shaking his head. He’s in his thirties and he just threw a tantrum over an inanimate object doing what inanimate objects do best. He really needs some help. 

 

Shane crouches down and begins cleaning up the pieces of the planchette. He’s too tired to do much clean up now but he’ll blow out the candles and set them aside in a second, he just doesn’t want Obi to accidentally swallow any of the pieces. 

 

There’s a piece on the A that he picks up first, then N, and R and Y and then he’s done. He puts away the candles, throws out the plastic and crawls into bed disappointed and tired. 

 

And then he immediately sits up in disbelief because holy shit, he’s a dumbass. If this were some 90’s sitcom he would’ve been slapping his forehead as canned laughter played over it. 

 

Instead, he runs to the living room, almost braining himself on his coffee table as he skids to a stop. 

 

“Ryan?” Shane calls out, slightly hysteric, “You’re here aren’t you? You asshole, you really had me waiting for hours for you to communicate with me, huh?”

 

Shane’s met with silence and his fingers itch with the urge to pull out the Ouija board but if it didn’t work before and the planchette is gone now Shane doesn’t think it will help much. 

 

“Um, I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing here but I’m willing to try. For you. For my… my ghoulfriend,” Shane huffs out a laugh that sounds suspiciously wet and smiles to cover it up, “I guess you really are my ghoul friend now, huh?”

 

Silence. 

 

“Well...I guess. I guess that’s goodnight for now, Ryan. I’ll try again, I promise.”

 

—— 

 

True to his word, Shane does try again. He tries again and again and nothing works. 

 

He finds a spell to give spirits energy, a spell to channel them and another to give them the ability to speak but each night he goes to bed exhausted and numb when all that he’s met with is silence. 

 

Shane’s obviously never been a believer of magic or mysticism but he refuses to believe that Ryan’s out there and just doesn’t want to talk to him and he knows that this line of thinking is a complete 180 from who he was before but. 

 

But he’d rather be a whole new person than accept the fact that he may never be able to talk to Ryan again. 

 

So, he won’t give up. Not on Ryan. 

 

——

 

Shane goes to sleep exhausted and at the end of his rope. He’s been spending weeks researching non stop, ignoring the concerned looks and shaking off the worried questions of his coworkers. 

 

He’s so close, he can feel it, can sense it in the air not unlike all the times Ryan had claimed a haunted location had had a certain vibe, and yet he just can’t seem to break through the intangible barrier that seems to be holding him back. 

 

He’s finally drifting off, lost in a tangle of memories of Ryan when something shifts. 

 

If asked, Shane wouldn’t be able to say exactly what changes. Maybe his state between sleep and wakefulness allows something in his mind to open, like what people claim of astral projecting or sleep paralysis, or maybe his sheer desperation finally leads to actual belief (and at this point Shane’s got to have invented a new form of internalized  _ something _ because he’s really hating himself for these theories) but it doesn’t really matter because he’s  _ seeing  _ Ryan for the first time in months. Not just talking to him, but  _ seeing him _ and God, does he look good. 

 

He’s not see through and he doesn’t have some weird tail where his legs should be —which Shane is eternally grateful for— but something about him, the way he looks, the way he _ feels _ , makes it obvious to Shane that he really is a ghost and not just a figment of his imagination.

 

“...Ryan?” Shane asks once he can find his voice, “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

 

Ryan grins at him, big and bright and Shane feels his heart give a little clench, torn between longing and relief.

 

“Hey, big guy.  _ I  _ can’t believe you did all that ghost hunting for lil’ ole me. And you said you didn’t want to be a ghostbuster.”

 

Shane means to make a joke in response, to continue with the banter that they used to be so famous for but when he says, “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you,” it comes out more genuinely than Shane had even thought possible. 

 

Ryan, well, he blushes inasmuch as a ghost can blush and rests his hand on top of Shane’s. It feels like static, like when you sit on your leg a weird way and the blood flow gets cut off, so when you go to move it gives out underneath you. 

 

“I know. I believed in you even though I wasn’t sure you’d believe in all of this.” 

 

Shane swallows but it gets stuck in his throat. 

 

“Why...why can I see you now. I tried so hard before and nothing happened. I thought…”

 

“I’m not sure. My theory is that it took some time for me to build up the energy to do little things like push Paddington around or move those pieces. 

 

I think...I think whatever you were doing  _ did _ help, just not immediately. Like, they took some time to work and were meant to help me in the long run. But whatever the reason, I’m here now. I’m here now and I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.”

 

Shane nods like any of that makes sense and, who knows, Ryan the Ghost is sitting in his bed so maybe it does but Shane’s stuck fixating on Ryan actually in front of him. Ryan looking as handsome as he had months prior. Ryan saying ‘I’m here now and I’m sorry if you thought otherwise’.  _ Ryan.  _

 

“I… I missed you so fucking much, Ryan. It hurt every time I looked over and you weren’t there. Everytime I went to make a joke and I didn’t hear your obnoxious little wheeze. It hurt.

 

And I’m sorry if this is selfish but I can’t bear the idea of you disappearing again without me telling you that I...I’m in love with you. Like, stupidly in love with you.”

 

“Shane…”

 

“It’s okay, Ryan. You don’t have to say it back to me. It’s more than enough just having the chance to let you know.”

 

“Shane, I love you, too, you big idiot but I’m… I’m dead, Shane. I’m dead and I have nothing to offer you.”

 

“I know you are. God, do I know you are. But I can’t… I can’t just stop loving you,” Shane says, pretending like his voice isn’t a small, sad imitation of what it’s supposed to be. 

 

This...this isn’t what he had in mind when he saw Ryan again. He isn’t sure  _ what _ he had in mind but he hadn’t thought it would be this painful, this  _ hard,  _ to see Ryan. 

 

(Shane knows that makes no sense, that obviously it would be hard to see a dead loved one long after everyone had told you to move on but maybe Shane’s just so used to the sight of Ryan bringing him so much joy that the disconnect is wreaking havoc on the ole noggin.)

 

Ryan moves his hand to Shane’s cheek and the static moves with it.

 

“I’m so sorry, Shane. I’m not asking you to do that but I am asking you to… to  _ try  _ to move on. You need a real life, a healthy one. Not just one where you hole up in the dark and try to talk to the literal ghost of me, Shane.”

 

“No! I can’t just..  _ you _ can’t just...leave me! I’ll figure something out. I managed to get you here now, who says I can’t bring you back.”

 

“Shane,” Ryan says, brown eyes soft and voice filled with sorrow, “you and I both know that’s not possible. I don’t belong here with you and you don’t belong there with me.”

 

“But-“

 

“No. I won’t let you. But if you’ll still have me, I’ll wait for you. And I better be waiting for a long ass time, big guy. Like Jack at the end of Titanic.”

 

Shane huffs a laugh and buries his face in Ryan’s neck, ignoring the borderline painful static sensation that occurs wherever their skin meets. 

 

Ryan cards his fingers through Shane's hair, softly petting him while Shane breathes in Ryans scent. He’s terrified he won’t remember it when he wakes.

 

“You just wanted an excuse to compare yourself to young Leo.” 

 

Ryan grins at him and Shanes heart constricts all over again.

 

“I… I can’t, Ryan. I can’t leave you again. I can’t do it. Please, please don’t make me.” 

 

“You have to, Shane. You’re alive. You have to live. For me. I can't bear to see you like this. Please.” 

 

Shane sighs, eyes slipping shut as he nods slowly. Anything for Ryan. 

 

——

 

Shane wakes up to the sunrise, light softly falling across his eyes. The other side of his bed is wrinkled, like it’s just recently been occupied. Like Ryan’s about to walk back in and curl against Shane’s side like they never had the chance to do while they were both alive. 

 

He closes his eyes again and lets himself want, lets himself  _ feel _ for the first time in months. The sun warms him just so and for a split second he thinks he’s done it, that Ryan is really in his bed, warm weight draped across him. 

 

Shane keeps his eyes shut, afraid to open them again in fear of losing his fleeting moment of fantasy. The light is tinted red and warm, filtered through capillaries in his eyelids and he thinks that this is what it means to see through rose-tinted glasses, looking at life through the dreams you get to keep as long as your eyes stay shut. 

 

Shane smiles even as tears prick the corner of his eyes and takes a deep breath, a hint of something familiar in the air. 

 

When he opens his eyes the sunrise has passed and his room feels barren and exposed in the piercing light of the morning. Paddington’s right where Shane left him.

 

——

 

Shane tries, he really does. He goes out more, he picks back up with Ruining History (though there's a permanent gap at his side that no one dares comment on) he even throws out all his gross candles but it still. It still hurts. 

 

And he knows it's dumb, that they weren't really ever anything. But maybe that's worse, that its why he can't get over it. They never had their chance, never had the ability to move past the ‘almost’ of it all. 

 

(And Shane knows that that's not true, that they weren’t  _ nothing _ . They were best friends, ShaneandRyan, and to downplay the importance of that in his life would be to do both of them a disservice but. Sometimes remembering them like that is enough but sometimes...sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it make his chest ache in it’s hollowness. Makes him feeling like he’s missing something integral, right behind his ribcage. It aches and it aches and his chest feels so tight that it feels like one wrong move and everything will snap—)

 

Shane dies soon after. 

 

——

 

“Shane...Shane what did you do?”

 

“I couldn’t do it Ryan...I died. Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. A broken heart. My, uh, heart got all bent outta shape from the sadness. Always a scientific explanation, huh?”

 

“You dumbass. You absolute, dramatic dumbass. Come here, I'm going to kill you.”

 

“Well I'm not going over there if you want to kill me, Ryan.”

 

“Shane…” Ryan says warningly but his voice is shaking and Shane immediately feels guilty. 

 

“Im kidding, Ryan, sorry. But also, where are we?”

 

They’re in an apartment that, to Shane’s knowledge, doesn’t belong to either of them but there’s something familiar about it. 

 

Shane looks around and notices his sofa, his jacket by the door, and his books lined haphazardly in a bookshelf along the wall but there's plenty of stuff that he doesn’t recognize. Still, it's...nice. Homey.

 

“Well, that’s my coffee table and those are definitely my shoes,” he points to an unnecessary amount of basketball shoes in the corner that Shane isn’t sure how he missed. 

 

“So, there’s your stuff… and there’s my stuff?”

 

“Yeah, but there’s plenty of stuff that I don’t recognize but I could see myself getting. I think...it's...where we could've ended up in a different life if we weren’t both so bad at y'know...staying alive.”

 

Shane laughs.

 

“God, we really are a pair aren't we.”

 

Ryan snorts and moves closer, hand cupping Shane’s face, warm and grounding, no static to be found. 

 

“Yeah. We are.”

 

They meet in the middle, kissing softly as the sun begins to rise, the light from their window illuminating their entwined forms. 

 

Shane smiles into the kiss and all he feels is warmth filling his chest. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> my notes for when I started writing this included "ambiguous ending" and "have ryan leave so shane has to move on idk yet" but im physically incapable of writing angst without a happy ending so this is what yall got stuck with. if you like it feel free to leave a comment or a kudos. also come say hi to me on tumblr @boogariac, im always down to take prompts!
> 
> (also also this song has nothing to do w this fic but last words of a shooting star by my wife mitski is a bop if you want to b in a sad mood for this fic lol)


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